Pod Save America - Iowa Episode 3: Endorsements, surrogates and criticisms of Iowa

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

In episode three of this five-part miniseries on the Iowa caucuses, we dive into the all-important race to lock down the state’s key endorsements. These campaign surrogates, always critical, loom particularly large for the five US Senators running who may have to spend the bulk of January in impeachment hearings. We’ll also dig into all the criticisms of the Iowa caucuses, from the demographics of the state to the charge that the caucuses themselves are undemocratic. Plus: a ukulele. The series is hosted by Tommy Vietor and produced by Pineapple Street Studios.

Language supposedly has all these rules. Most of us never have to think about those rules, but the hidden hand of language guides nearly every interaction we have with other people, determining whether we connect, entertain, confuse, insult, or dazzle the people we communicate with. In Radio Lingo, the new podcast from Duolingo and Crooked Media, we explore how language shapes our world and how our world shapes language. I'm Amad El-Yakber. I'm an audio journalist and James Beard award-winning writer. I am in awe of language, its complexity and its simplicity, the way we can use it to

create both distance and understanding. I'm going to be your guide. Join us as we take you on a linguistic journey. From Crooked Media and Duolingo, this is Radio Lingo. New episodes out Tuesdays on your favorite podcast apps. I do have my own car, but I got snow tires on it. I think I'm all set. October in Iowa is cold. When I was there, it snowed, it rained, my sneakers got soaked. October in Iowa is cold. When I was there, it snowed, it rained, my sneakers got soaked. I live in L.A. now. I've gotten very soft and I was not ready.

But caucus night in February will be way worse. So it was no surprise that the staffers making calls at Cory Booker's field office in Des Moines were getting grilled about their snow gear. I got my ice scrapers. Yeah, I'm all prepared. It was October 30th, and in Iowa, people celebrate Halloween a day early for reasons I don't understand. But the office was packed with candy and people making calls. It was called the Cory Booker phone bank. Team Booker loves a bad pun.

Here's Booker field organizer Mitch Smith. And it comes from the top. Yes. Cory loves the dad jokes. I think he said in a public event the other day that his Halloween name is Gory Booker. So, you know, we try to lean into that. We try to campaign the way that we're living our values. I'm Tommy Vitor, and this is episode three of a special Pod Save America series from Iowa.

Today, we're going to talk about the most important part of the campaign, what it takes to get someone to commit to caucus for you. In field organizer speak, it's called getting a one. We'll hear about the links campaigns go to to get endorsements from key players in the state, including some that might surprise you. We'll also check back in with the field organizers as they try to get Iowans to sign up for their candidates. And we'll talk about all the reasons why Iowa going first might be a terrible idea. Mitch, the guy who was just talking about the puns, organizes in Polk County, which is basically Des Moines and some of the fast-growing suburbs around it. We've been talking with him over the last few episodes.

His goal, and the goal of pretty much every field organizer, is to get people to commit to his candidate. In the summer, that meant one-on-ones with Iowans, even very little Iowans. One that stands out is the woman who brought her six-year-old daughter. It was right when most of the news was around, the children who were being put in cages at the border. And so she brought her daughter and said, my daughter's going to decide who I caucus for. So you're not just talking to me, you're talking to her too. And we both have questions for you. And so her daughter asked me about immigration.

And we talked through how Corey would take action on day one to make know, our immigration detention doesn't at all resemble what it resembles now. I kind of went through the different steps. And I think that kind of hit home for me that we're not just doing this for ourselves. We're doing it for, you know, her kid was making the choice. And, you know. And now you got to hone your six-year-old pitch. You're a jack of all trades. It was a different pitch. It was a slightly different pitch. I had to change the language a little bit. Gloria will give you snacks and naps at all times. She was smart for a six-year-old. That wouldn't have worked. Now that it's winter, Mitch's job is basically to organize himself out of a job. That means you recruit enough volunteers that they're the ones doing the phone banking and the door knocking,

and then Mitch is coordinating them. That's really the only way to scale up enough to get the commits you need to win the caucuses. I asked Mitch if he had done that yet. Ooh, that's a good question. I have in certain precincts, yeah. You mean as the precinct captains? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's just straight up harder with this many candidates in the race and with this many people who are, this point still very undecided, we have people who say, as soon as I've decided, I'm going to work really hard for whoever I decide

for. Corey's in my top two or top three, but I want to wait because I just don't know. I haven't made up my mind yet. I mean, it's Iowa. It's Iowa. The number one thing that I hear when I knock on people's doors or talk to them on the phone is that they want to make sure we get someone new in the White House. And that is never said, you know, kind of calmly or passively. You know, sometimes there are, you know, swear words and epithets involved too. But if you got 10 Iowans in a room and said define electability, you'd get 10 answers. I just wonder how you deal with that. Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's not really, answers. I just wonder how you deal with that.

Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's not really my job to deal with it. It's the caucus goer's job. People have a lot of different ideas, just like you said, of what makes someone electable. When I talk to people about why they like Corey, they say he's someone who people trust can beat Trump on a debate stage, but come out of it with his dignity. And then they trust him to get some things done once he does beat Trump. FOs, as we talked about a bunch here, are on the front line making the case for their candidates. But it's not just up to them. It's also a job for surrogates. Those are the people, whether they're celebrities or politicians or whatever, who do events for you, who do interviews for you, basically make your case. In 2008, our surrogates included former elected officials, retired

generals, Oprah, then San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, and many, many others. But our best surrogate of all was Michelle Obama. We called her the closer. On actual Halloween this year, I went to an event with Senator Amy Klobuchar at a restaurant in Des Moines called Bubba. She was getting an endorsement from a woman named Roxanne Conlon. Roxanne was the U.S. attorney in Iowa, and she ran for governor in the Senate. These stand-ins really matter. And maybe, especially for a senator like Amy Klobuchar, who might be a little busy in January. And especially if we're in an impeachment trial,

I'm going to need enthusiastic endorsers like Roxanne to be in my stead and be going around the state. Competition for surrogates and endorsements in Iowa is fierce. The Des Moines Register actually does a 50 Most Wanted Democrats feature in the paper, and on that list is Rob Sand. He's the state auditor. We met Rob last episode. He was explaining how caucusing works. Rob got into politics back in high school when he was campaigning for a skate park in his hometown of Decorah, Iowa. As a prosecutor in the Iowa Attorney General's office, Rob investigated and prosecuted this huge multi-state lottery scam.

There was actually a really cool New York Times Magazine article about it. You should read it. It is literally unbelievable. Rob was one of the few Democrats to win statewide in 2018. And because he pulled that off, a lot of presidential candidates won his support.

I can only speak to this cycle, I guess, because nobody really cared before. No one's ever reached out before. But mostly it's cold calls. We have a chat. Say, hey, yeah, would be delighted to meet with you. Come on over to my house. Let's have a cup of coffee. I'll tell you what I think is good advice.

Take it or leave it. And go from there. How would you figure out how to make a decision that big? I'm a pretty holistic person. I would prefer to endorse someone that I do really feel a connection to. I would also prefer to endorse someone that I think is where we need to be on the issues. If I was going to actually get in for somebody, I would mean it. Yeah, yeah. And if I mean it, I'm going to actually get in for somebody, I would mean it. Yeah. Yeah. And if I, and if I mean it, I'm going to go work at it.

Right. Right. Do you think it'll be anything like your job catching chickens? I have not thought of that analogy. Allow me to reflect. Can you tell us about your job catching chickens for a second? Yeah. Um, first job I was like 14. No, no. Technically speaking for those who are a little ag savvy, they were capons. Okay. Those are unfortunate male chickens. Okay. Okay.

Um, and it, it makes them plumper and heavier, uh, better eating. And so we'd, we'd get in truck at the capon factory. There's a couple blocks from downtown Decorah. We drive out. This is usually leaving at five or six at night. They drive these trucks into this giant chicken barn, huge, just flat dirt floor, chickens all over the place, running around. They turn off all the lights and it's your job to get down, put your gloves on, and then basically walk up behind the chickens with the lights off because they can't see that well, grab them by

the legs and then grab another one and then lift them up to the guys that are on the truck. Okay. And you're just doing that for hours and hours and hours. Now a chicken, Tommy, when you catch it, only has one line of defense left, and that is to essentially piss and shit all over. So you end up going home just covered in chicken waste.

Oof. But, but it was, it was good work because, uh, number one, cause it was real work, right? All work has meaning. You could look at that truck full of chickens at the end of the day and be like, there, we did that. And I like the idea of the manual labor. You can actually see the results every day of what you've done. I was getting paid five bucks an hour, which is totally sweet when you're 14 and in a small town in Iowa.

And it also made my next job at McDonald's seem so plush. But, I mean, maybe catching chickens in the dark and hoping they don't shit on you is a good metaphor for trying to get support in the Iowa caucuses. I mean, you're groping around. You don't really know where the support's going to come from. But, you know, once you get a one, once you get that supporter card signed, you're gold. And at the end of the day, you just have to keep going until the work is done. Right, right. There is no rest in the Iowa caucuses, just as there is no rest in catching chickens. Deidre DeGere is another young star in Iowa. She ran for secretary of state in 2018, and she came very, very close to beating the Republican

incumbent. So like Rob, she is a coveted get. I didn't come out of my 2018 race in November thinking I was getting ready to hop on and support a presidential. In all honesty, I wanted to give myself a year to get back involved. And I was telling a friend that at lunch one day that I'm just going to sit on the sideline. And I literally saw myself saying I'm going to sit on the sideline and immediately became disgusted because I told people for over two years to get off the sideline and to get involved and to not give in to any of the fear mongering that was going on in our country. And so in that moment, I made a decision to jump in. She signed up with the Kamala Harris campaign in January. She's going around with a 3 a.m. agenda right now, the things that wake people up at night. And she's taking those challenges and not just talking about them, but creating authentic plans that could address those issues and move us in the right direction. Does she ever call you at 3 a.m. just to, like, talk?

You know she doesn't call me at 3 a.m., and I must say, if she did, I probably wouldn't hear the phone. Sometimes in Iowa, the best surrogates aren't elected officials or politicians. In fact, a few of them can't even vote yet. Tom Vilsack was the governor of Iowa for two terms. Then he served as Barack Obama's secretary of agriculture. He was a coveted endorsement in his own right. But he told me what might be one of my favorite Iowa endorsement stories ever. I was with President Obama in his first trip back to Iowa after his election. We were going to

Newton to take a look at a windmill blade factory. He was in Marine One. We were helicoptering from the Des Moines airport to Newton. And he was looking out the cornfields and he just sort of out, said out loud, 89 days, 89 days. And he looked at me, he says, I campaigned in Iowa, 89 days. And Gibbs was with him as a press secretary. And he said, tell Tom about the cell phone. President Obama started chuckling. He said, at the end of one of those long days, and Tommy, you know what they're like. Oh yeah. Eight or nine town hall meeting, people's living rooms, high schools, gymnasiums, whatever. You're exhausted as a candidate. You get in a car and a young staffer handed him a series of telephone numbers. And he looked at the young staffer and he said, well,

what are these? They're telephone calls, sir, you have to make. Who are they? Are they labor leaders? Are they county chair people? Or are they donors? Who am I calling here? Young staffer said, well, they're high school students, sir. And he said, high school students. And this young staffer said, oh, sir, these people are just absolutely key. They're absolutely crucial to victory. So being the dedicated candidate he was, he dialed the first number. And it was a young woman who answered the phone, and I don't remember what her name was, but just for the sake of this, I'll say it was Barbara. So the phone rings, Barbara answers it, and then Senator Obama says, Barbara, this is Barack Obama. I wondered if I could just spend a few minutes talking to you about the caucus. And this young lady says, well, Barack, doesn't call him Senator, just says, well, Barack,

I'm in a yearbook meeting. And if you want to call me back in about 20 minutes, I'll be happy to visit with you. So I love this story for a couple of reasons. First, it's a great illustration of the many ways Iowa can knock you down a peg or two. And I think that's important for these candidates. You might be speaking in huge rallies or on national TV, but part of your job is to prove that you will put in all the work necessary to win the general election. So if a 17-year-old sends you to voicemail, you deal with it. But I also love it because it speaks to something that I've seen a lot this cycle in Iowa. We hear a lot about

conflict between generations, right? Like half of us are tweeting, okay, boomer at people we don't know. Others are criticizing millennials for allegedly spending their money on avocado toasts, whatever bullshit. But in Iowa, you have these FOs who are mostly in their 20s having earnest, serious, in-depth conversations with potential caucus goers, folks who are often in their 60s and 70s. And, you know, obviously the field organizers are organizing students too and other young people, but we kept seeing them sitting down with people much older than they are and being taken really seriously. These older people are listening to the organizers. Their words carry

weight. Olivia Ellis is the Warren field organizer we've hung out with over the past couple episodes, and I talked with her about this intergenerational phenomenon in a cavernous hallway after an event with Elizabeth Warren. We've noticed in like a bunch of places how cool it is that, you know, FOs are generally fairly young, right? You're pitching often like older people, but they actually seem to listen. Do you ever think it's weird that you're like telling some 65 year old person who to vote for? I, yeah, I get that. I think they, they want to feel that hope though. And they look at us and we're a tangible representation of where our country can go. And I think it's refreshing for them in some senses. So, I mean, they look at me and I, you know,

am barely off of school and I miss my mom. And they just, they want to take care of you. And like one of my volunteers brought me Advil the other day to the campus. And so you really get to know each other and they end up, you know, yes, wanting to caucus for Elizabeth, but also not wanting to disappoint me,

which is nice. Breanne Fonan-Steele sees this dynamic all the time. She's the chief politics reporter at the Des Moines Register, and she let us hang out with her at her office one morning. I think in Iowa, at least, there's a culture of having conversations about politics where it's not strange. You know, I make a joke, and it's funny because it's mostly true, that Iowa's the only place where you can talk to a voter and they'll ask to go off the record, just like a normal human at a campaign event, because they have so many of these types of interactions. So I think there's some kind of normalization of the process where it's not unusual to hear from a 19, 20-year-old

kid and to understand that they're deeply engaged in this process and to respect that they have moved away from their home and invested their time and their money and their energy into what this is. I think any activist, anyone who's involved at politics and sees these organizers in action knows how much they've invested of their time and their energy and their heart into this process. And I think you have to respect that, even if it's not your candidate, even if it's not your party. That thing Brianne just said about talking to people not from your party, that's a big deal. It's important to know that while caucuses are divided by party, you can choose which party you

caucus for on caucus night. So for example, somebody who voted for Trump in 2016 can show up at their local Democratic caucus on February 3rd, 2020, change their party registration, and participate. So field organizers across Iowa are working hard to recapture some of those people who might have voted for Obama twice, but then voted for Trump. You know, I think there are a number of people who are very passionate about President Trump who will be with him until the last dog dies. who are very passionate about President Trump, who will be with him until the last dog dies. Here's Secretary Tom Vilsack again.

But I also think that there are an equal number of folks who are deeply concerned and are fearful of what another four years could mean. And then there are the folks in the middle that are uncomfortable with just the direction. But I think there's a larger number than usual of people who say, we've got to win this election. And I'm making my choice based on who I think can make the case to that wavering voter. I asked Secretary Vilsack the question that kind of prompted this whole show, which is, is Iowa the best place to make the first choice, especially since it is so much less racially diverse than the country as a whole and then the Democratic Party as a whole? Well, let me challenge the premise of the question. Okay.

I can't make the case that we are as diverse as most of the other states in the country. We're not. But we are disproportionately rural. And that is a segment of America's population that often gets disregarded within the Democratic Party and often gets taken for granted by the other side. And I think that needs to be part of electing a president because 15% of America's population lives in rural places. That's roughly the equivalent of the African-American population, roughly equivalent to the Hispanic and Latino population. So it seems to me that it makes sense

to have in the mix a state that has a significant representation of that group of Americans. Last question for you about Iowa as hopefully a purple state. I mean, I just remember being really struck when I woke up after election day 2016 and I saw that Donald Trump had won all of those eastern Iowa river counties that President Obama had won, that previous Democrats had done well in. I'm curious why you think all those counties might have gone to Trump and whether you think the state may or may not be poised to change back to a blue state or whether it's Republican for a while. Well, look, I think at the end of 2016, what people were deeply concerned about was the inability of government to do anything, to get anything done. I think people were looking for someone that they believed

could cut through all of that. And so they were willing to give Donald Trump a chance. When you run for reelection, you don't get the benefit of that. His approval rating in Iowa is well below what his electoral margin was. And I think if we have a candidate who has a certain level of boldness to attack big problems, but who also conveys a sense of steadiness, I think Iowans along all of those river communities, as well as the internal part of the state, will give that candidate a very close look. I think if we have that kind of candidate, I think we can win Iowa. I think we can win Wisconsin. I think we can win Michigan. I think we can win Pennsylvania. I really, really hope he's right. When I spoke

with Secretary Vilsack in late summer, he wasn't ready to say who he'd back in the caucuses. Right before Thanksgiving, though, he and his wife announced their support for Joe Biden. When we come back, and apologies in advance to all those rural voters that Vilsack was just championing, all the arguments against Iowa going first. We're back. I'm Tommy Vitor, and this is episode three of our special series on the Iowa caucuses. And here is where we go negative on the state of Iowa. I have talked about all the reasons I loved living in Iowa and working there for Barack Obama and think the process can be great. But there are a lot of valid criticisms of Iowa's role in the process and of caucuses

generally that we should talk about. Here's presidential candidate Julian Castro on MSNBC talking about one of the biggest criticisms you'll hear about Iowa. I actually believe that we do need to change the order of the states because I don't believe that we're the same country we were in 1972. Our country has changed a lot in those 50 years. The Democratic Party has changed a lot. What I really appreciate about Iowans and the folks in New Hampshire is that they take this process very seriously. They vet the candidates. They show up at town halls.

They give people a good hearing. At the same time, demographically, it's not reflective of the United States as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party. And I believe that other states should have their chance. According to the 2018 census, Iowa is 90 percent white. The U.S. as a whole is about three quarters white. Castro's larger point is that the Democratic Party depends heavily on African-American voters, especially African-American women. But the states that make the first choices, Iowa and New Hampshire, don't have a lot of African-American residents. Just 4% of Iowans are Black compared to 13% of the country.

This is true for Latinx people, too. 6% of Iowans are Hispanic or Latino compared to about 18% of the rest of the country. The fact that Castro is willing to say this publicly is new, and frankly, it's brave politically. It's not like the racial makeup of Iowa is a secret to the other people running, but most of them don't want to knock the state because obviously they want to win it. Charlie Pierce, on the other hand, is more than happy to talk shit about Iowa. He's the lead political reporter at Esquire magazine.

He has covered politics since the early 70s, and we ran into each other at the Iowa State Fair back in August. I think caucuses are, you know, one of the worst ideas anyone ever came up with. Why? Because they're not democratic. They're gamed. When you have a state like this where the demographics are so skewed, they don't really tell you anything. I've seen better organized riots. So one big critique are the demographics of the state,, they don't really tell you anything. I've seen better organized riots. So one big critique are the demographics of the state. But there are a lot of criticisms of caucuses themselves. Sure. I've heard every one. Maybe some of you haven't heard of.

Richard Bender helped set up the system in Iowa. I've been talking to people about this literally since 1970. So I've heard everything. And some of them are not wrong, you know. There are basically two concerns that are somewhat related. One is it takes a long time. You have to go for quite a while. You have to show up to your caucus location by 7 p.m. But because of the realigning and the stuff we talked about last time, you might end up being there for a couple of hours.

This year, if your candidate has enough support to cross that 15% viability threshold on the first round, you can actually just sign a card and leave. And that's new, and the idea is just to help people get out of there faster. Okay, next problem. The big problem is there's one particular time on one particular day. That's a problem because some people can't make it. They may work, they may be out of town, they may have a new baby, you know. Or you might have a disability,

which could make it hard to get to the caucuses or hard to participate once you get there. Jane Hudson is the director of Disability Rights Iowa, and we caught up with her at the state fair. It is very exciting. It's a very unique Iowa thing to have your neighbors around you in a high school gym. But you go in, it's very crowded. People who have disabilities, you know, can't stand for two hours or three hours. There's just a lot of issues. People with autism or PTSD, it's a very loud, stimulating environment. There's no place to go for a quiet

room to get away for a while. Remember, there's nearly 1,700 caucus locations, and those locations weren't designed for this purpose. So there's not always enough chairs. Not all caucuses have microphones, so it can be hard to hear. Basically, you end up standing around a loud room for a long time, and that's not easy for a lot of people. This cycle, the Iowa Democratic Party tried to launch something called a virtual caucus. The idea was to let people call in and participate by phone, but that ended up getting axed because the DNC was worried it would be vulnerable to hackers. What is on the table is something called a satellite caucus. Here's Troy Price, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. So satellite caucus is basically just creating more

caucus sites. And so it's an application-based process. So if there's a big hospital and a bunch of doctors and nurses work there and they can't leave for obvious reasons, they could apply and say, we'd like to have a caucus location in our break room. Yeah, that's right. We had four sites last cycle. We had three at state-run institutions that were capturing the state employees that worked at those places.

And we had one at a nursing home in Iowa City. That one had over 100 people at it. So we know that it works. We know that this can expand participation. And so we're trying to find that right balance of not cannibalizing precinct caucus participation, but making sure that we can get those folks who can't otherwise get there. It could just be a miserable experience, which I think it actually was for a lot of people in 2016. In 2020, the party is expecting turnout to be even higher.

And even though people can now leave after their candidate is deemed viable, the party is preparing for huge crowds. We're talking to the campaigns about what they're seeing out there. I mean, just given the energy that's out there right now, given the number of candidates that are organizing right now, we do think this will be our highest caucus turnout ever. And so, you know, it would not surprise me if we got into the high 200,000s, but we're going to prepare for it. The party and the campaigns aren't just preparing for a big turnout. They are counting on it to beat Donald Trump in the general election. Here's Olivia Ellis, Elizabeth Warren's field organizer. If we're really going to do this, if we're going to beat Donald Trump, we need to have unprecedented numbers and turnout. And the only way people are going to turn out is if they really believe in the candidate, right? And so we've been asking people on the doors, like, what do you value?

Like, what do you want out of a president? When I started talking to people for this series back in the summer, the field felt too big and unwieldy. And, you know, everybody I talked to assumed it would have narrowed significantly by now. But somehow here it is in December and we are adding candidates as fast as we are losing them. Next time, we hang with those candidates. We'll go to an Elizabeth Warren event. A Bernie rally. All right, in a few minutes,

we're going to get warm because we're going to take a little walk. We're going to take a walk for justice. A Pete Buttigieg jam session. When Pete takes the lead. Take the lead And a Cory Booker ukulele tribute. Seriously. There's no need to build that wall

The poles are wrong In time they'll change Far wrong in time, they'll change. We'll go to one of the biggest nights of the campaign season in Iowa and see who's got the muscle to turn their folks out. Because as the caucus gets closer, the campaigning is going to be very intense. And we'll talk through all the other ways we could pick our nominee. See you back in Iowa next week. I'm Tommy Vitor. This series is produced by Kat Aaron. Production help from Justine Daum and Agarene Ashagre. Joel Lovell is our editor. Music and mixing by Hannes Brown.

The audio of Secretary Julian Castro talking about racial demographics in Iowa is courtesy of MSNBC. The executive producers at Pineapple Street Studios are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky. Thanks to Elena Schwartz and Nancy Rosenbaum. A special thank you to Tanya Sominator, Sarah Wick, Michael Martinez, Kyle Seglin, Brian Semel, Nikki Fancy, and Jordan Silver from the Crooked Media team.